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Vought F4U-9 Corsair Pulse jet Prototype

1,207 Desperado73  3.6 years ago
Auto Credit Based on Desperado73's Vought F4U Corsair

(Fictional) In 1943 the US Navy was looking for ways to boost the performance of their fighter aircraft. Although the new jet engines showed a lot of promise, they were still suffering from a lot of teething problems. Also the high fuel consumption of the jet engines of the day made them unsuitable for carrier use. At the same time in Britain the V-1 attacks were mounting and from a number of crashed V-1s the British reconstituted a number of pulse jet engines sending some of them to the USA for testing. As a result of these tests the US government ordered a production run of 240 copies of the Argus engines from Pratt & Whitney. They received the designation J014-01 The Vought company received a number of the pre-production engines and designed a pulse jet powered version of the F4U Corsair. To save time a minimal redesign was done to the original design. This fighter had four J014 pulse jet engines mounted on the wings. Because there was no longer an engine in the nose, a solid nose was installed with 8 machine guns. These together with the six wing mounted guns provided an enormous fire power. The first 12 Pulse Corsairs were designated F4U-9 and were delivered to the Navy in the beginning of 1945 and were tested on the carrier USS Hornet. They flew a number of patrols over Okinawa but never had any actual combat.

General Characteristics

  • Predecessor Vought F4U Corsair
  • Created On Windows
  • Wingspan 34.2ft (10.4m)
  • Length 25.0ft (7.6m)
  • Height 12.2ft (3.7m)
  • Empty Weight N/A
  • Loaded Weight 6,519lbs (2,957kg)

Performance

  • Power/Weight Ratio 2.068
  • Wing Loading 26.2lbs/ft2 (127.8kg/m2)
  • Wing Area 249.0ft2 (23.1m2)
  • Drag Points 4212

Parts

  • Number of Parts 108
  • Control Surfaces 7
  • Performance Cost 511